Thirteen people have been killed and a dozen more injured in a tunnel collapse at a Chinese construction site in the Ecuadoran Amazon.
Three Chinese and 10 Ecuadorans died in the incident, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said on Twitter on Sunday.
Ecuador's public radio reported that the fatalities occurred in the engine room at the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric station.
"We're evaluating what has happened. It's a problem we're having in the pressurised piping," Dennis Salgado, the project's lead control technician, told news agency AFP.
The Chinese-funded plant employs 7000 workers - 20 per cent of whom are Chinese - along the border of the Amazonian Napo and Sucumbios states.
The injured were being treated at a hospital in the town of El Chaco.
Coca Codo Sinclair, constructed by the Chinese firm Sinohydro, cost about $US2.2 billion ($A2.38 billion) and is scheduled to begin operation in February 2016. It is expected to generate 36 per cent of the energy currently consumed in Ecuador.
